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i'UE ____ SWITZERLAND. 



PROF. ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 



FEOM THE EEPOET OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
FOE THE YEAE 1870. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1872. 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 



By Alexander Dallas Bache. 



[The following lecture on Switzerland, from the manuscript of Professor Bache, is 
here published for the first time to illustrate in connection with the foregoing eulogy 
his habit of observation and his facility of description. It presents, however, a lively 
sketch of one of the most interesting portions of the earth, whether considered from a 
historical or physical point of view, and we doubt not will be read with pleasure, 
especially by all who have been favored with a visit to the delightful region which it 
describes. The original notes from which the lecture was prepared were taken during 
the Professor's visit to Switzerland in 1837-38. The foot-notes, exhibiting the present 
condition of the country, have been kindly furnished to us by the Hon. Mr. Hitz, Swiss 
consul general in this city. — J. H.] 

Travelers relate that in certain conditions of the atmosphere a spec- 
tator standing upon the shore at Beggio, and looking upon the smooth 
waters of the Straits of Messina, sees suddenly, rise before him, as if by 
magic, the walls, towers, palaces, domes, and streets of a city, in which 
mimic life goes on, men and animals moving noiselessly to and fro. The 
illusion is as complete as if the waters of the bay were a foundation 
upon which' the genii of the lamp or of the ring- had suddenly erected 
their magic structures. This is an extreme case of the ordinary illusion 
presented to those who, in a calm clear day, look at distant objects 
across a wide expanse of bay or river. Familiar forms are strangely 
distorted ; level shores appear precipitous; the puny sloop swells' into 
the size of a frigate; the fisherman's boat becomes a dismasted sloop, 
and its occupant a giant. Just so it is when in mental vision we attempt 
to look through an atmosphere disturbed by the habits and prejudices 
to which we are accustomed. Unreal towers and walls appear, and 
objects so lose their shapes that the most familiar forms escape recog- 
nition. Every country has its prejudices resulting from education, from 
all the influences, political, moral, social, and physical which surround 
and act upon its citizens. By these, in general, the observer of men 
and things is biased, and he who through the'mists of Ms national or 
personal prejudices seeks to realize their just forms and proportions, 
may mistake the pigmy for a giant, the shallop for a frigate. 

In estimating the institutions of the Old World we are prone to forget 
that the materials for our judgment are generally furnished by the opin- 
ions of those who are brought up under a totally different state of things 
from that which exists around us. The conclusions which we thus form 
may be the very opposite of those to which we would have come our- 
selves, had our own prepossessions furnished the inferences from the 
facts. In neither case, perhaps, would truth be arrived at, but in the 



4 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

former the result may be deeply injurious, because leading to modes 
and habits of thought and action not in harmony with the peculiarities 
of our country. 

Impressed with the importance to Americans of judging independ- 
ently of the institutions of Europe, I formerly took occasion in another 
place to present a cursory view of the capital of Austria, as illustrating 
the effects of institutions the very opposite of our own. I design on 
this occasion to occupy your attention, without further exceeding the 
limits of a lecture than is absolutely necessary, by a notice of men and 
things in the only federated republic of Europe, Switzerland. I cannot 
pretend to set before you a panoramic view, but merely a few detached 
pictures in outline, so selected as to convey a tolerably fair idea of 
republican Switzerland as it appeared to an American. By contem 
plating it we shall have an example of the practical working of repub- 
licanism in the Old World, under various modifications, and with the 
disadvantages of being hemmed in on all sides by monarchies. We shall 
thus see the power of this system to civilize and to enlighten. 

In the course of these sketches we shall find much bearing both 
directly and indirectly upon the objects which this Institute was estab- 
lished to promote. Upon the map of Europe Switzerland is so well 
defined by its boundaries that there is no danger of its escaping the 
sight on account of its small size. The Rhine constitutes nearly two 
sides of this boundary, from the point where the various streams from 
the glaciers of the Grisons have met to form a river into the lake of 
Constance, and from its exit thence to where the Jura Mountains turn 
its course to the Northern Ocean. The Jura separates Switzerland from 
France, and with merely an outlet for the Rhone, the Alps take up the 
line,- dividing rugged Switzerland from the plains of Northern Italy. 

The picturesque features of this country have furnished themes for the 
poet, the painter, and tourist. Under the influence of its snow-capped 
mountains, its shady and sequestered valleys, its rough glaciers, and its 
placid lakes, common-place men have warmed into something approach- 
ing to poetic fervor, and men of genius have poured forth their inspira- 
tions in verse or lofty prose. It is impossible to call up even in memory 
those scenes with all their attendant circumstances of romance — both 
nature and life so different from that to which we are accustomed — 
without feeling the heart and the imagination moved beyond their 
wont. 

" Who first beholds those everlasting clouds — 
Those mighty hills, so shadowy, so sublime, 
As rather to beloug to heaven than earth, 
But instantly receives into his soul 
A sense, a feeling, that he loses not ; 
A something, that informs him 'tis an hour 
Whence he may date henceforward and forever." 

But w r ho shall dare to speak in plain prose of scenes of which the muse 
of Byron has sung ? The rugged nature of the country within this bound- 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 5 

ary has had its effect in determining the character of institutions as 
well as of individuals. Small tracts of country are as completely sepa- 
rated by mountains of difficult passage, as by distance, differ iu the 
modes and facilities of life, have different interests, and consequently 
separate organizations. The character of the topography has divided 
the country into many small states, and has produced striking differ- 
ences in language and manners, in religions, social and political organ- 
ization, in a country of not more than one-third the extent of Pennsyl- 
vania, and with about the same population of that entire State. 

The present Swiss confederation consists of twenty-two sovereign 
states called cantons, the division of which, according to geographical 
position, includes also that of language.* Thus the north and middle of 
Switzerland contains the sixteen cantons where a dialect of the German 
is spoken, Zurich being the principal canton on the north, and Berne 
in the middle. To the west and south of the middle are the mixed 
German and French cantons of Neuchatel, Friberg, and Valais ; to the 
southeast the mixed German Romanic and Italian canton of the Grisons, 
or gray league, subdivided into its little sovereign states. On the south- 
west are the French cantons of Yaud and Geneva, and on the south of 
the middle the Italian canton of Tessin. While the language spoken 
by these people is determined by their proximity to those who speak it 
in its purity, their social, religious, and political institutions may almost 
be said to be uninfluenced by this circumstance. These are the results 
of other causes, many of which may be found in their history. 

A Florentine scholar relating to me unpublished anecdotes of the 
horrors enacted by members of the far-famed family of the Medici, with 
Italian fervor broke out into this apostrophe : " Happy, your great coun- 
try, which has not the chains of a dark history to bind it to the institu- 
tions and manners of a by-gone age. Beware how you men of the pre- 
sent day" sally the pure page which records the actions of your forefathers, 
of your Adams, your Franklin, your Washington." 

The condition of a country at a past day must assuredly influence its 
present state as the summer's sun upon the snow-covered mountains of 
the Alps increases the autumnal flow of the river whose sources lie 
among them, or as the accumulation of the winter's snow upon the 
mountain's peak produces the summer's avalanche. 

The history of the Swiss republics shows the circumstances which 
prepared and the impulses which gave existence to each, and a glorious 
history it is upon which to found progress in virtue and liberty. 

Nearly in the center of Switzerland is a mountainous district which 
the Bomaus never reached, into which the bands of Attila never pene- 
trated, and where no ruins of feudal castles exist to show that in the 

*To wit: Zurich. Berne, Lucerne, Uri Schwyz, Unterwaldeu, (upper and lower,) 
Glarus, Zug, Friburg, Solerue, Basil, (city and country,) ScharYhausen, Appenzel, (both 
Rhodes,) St. Gallen, Grisons, Aargan, Thurgau, Tessin, Yaud, Valais, Neuehatel, and 
Geneva. 



6 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

Middle Ages the inhabitants had a master. Divided, generally, by rocky- 
barriers into separate communities, the people are in a degree united by 
the beautiful lake of the Forest cantons. These people, from the ear- 
liest records, have been, and are now, poor and pastoral. They form the 
democratic cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, the nucleus of 
Swiss confederation. As early as the twelfth century they had a repre- 
sentative at the court of the Emperor of Germany, then the titular sov- 
ereign of Switzerland. Rudolph of Habsburg, whose castle was near 
the confluence of the Eeuss and the Aar, the father of the founder of 
the house of Austria, was elected the representative of these peasants, ' 
and subsequently the family claimed the dignitary to be hereditary. 
This claim was never admitted, and to its impolitic enforcement by 
Albert of Habsburg, accompanied by circumstances of peculiar indignity 
on his own part, and of great cruelty and oppression on the part of his 
bailiff Gessler, was owing the revolution headed by Tell and his com- 
panions. 

In pursuit of these same hereditary rights, Frederick of Austria, with 
his armies, entered the Forest cantons by their mountain passes, deter- 
mined to overrun and crush them. He was successfully resisted at the 
pass of Morgarten by one thousand three hundred men, and nine thou- 
sand of his troops perished in this defeat. Thus was developed that 
fierce military spirit which has led the Swiss of every age to acts of the 
most devoted heroism. 

From their wars with the dukes of Austria, the Swiss came out in 
1412 with eight cantons recognized as independent. The appetite for 
war had been whetted by this successful resistance to oppression, and 
was carried to its height by the defeat of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, 
and of his magnificent troops, at Grandson and at Morat. The spoils 
of these great armies suddenly enriched the people. Labor was neg- 
lected and fell into contempt, and the profession of arms alone consid- 
ered worthy occupation for a Swiss. The nation was for a time debased 
by a mercenary military spirit, and it required two centuries of blood- 
shed to impress the lessons necessary to their regeneration. The wars 
of the Reformation gave the last of this series of unhappy lessons, and 
at their close left the several cantons confirmed in their attachment to 
the same churches in behalf of which they had expended to no purpose 
their blood and treasure. In 1712 the confederation had attained nearly 
its present limits, but some of the present cantons were held as trib- 
utary provinces by the others. The Swiss spirit of former days burst 
forth when republican France began to proselyte by force of arms, and 
the constitution of the new Helvetic republic was presented at the point 
of the sword, and enforced by its edge. While the cantons of the plain 
were held by the French armies, pleasantly occupied in appropriating 
the savings of the aristocrats, and in giving liberty to the people by 
depriving them of their independence, the Forest cantons dared to 
declare that they had been free since the clays of Tell, and Melchthal, 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. r < 

and Winkelried ; that they required no lessons in self-government, and 
would resist invasion of their civil and religious rights to the death. 
Aloys Eecling, a descendant of Eudofph, who had defeated Frederick of 
Austria at the pass of Morgarten five hundred years before, occupied 
again that Therinopylse of his country. The mode of warfare had 
changed ; personal strength has little advantage in contests with fire- 
arms ; rocks and stones, though launched from mountain heights, are 
imperfect substitutes for cannon balls ; numbers can no longer be coun- 
terbalanced by valor. Four thousand men, aided by their women and 
children, held this pass two days against forty thousand, but at last 
were forced to yield, and the Forest cantons received the constitution 
which they could no longer resist. 

The days of the Jacobins passed ; those of the First Consul and Empe- 
ror dawned, waxed, and waned, and Switzerland was the battle-ground 
on which the French, Austrians, and Eussians contended, everywhere 
desolating the country with fire and sword. The pacification of Europe 
put an end to the horrible scenes then enacted, and the republics of 
Switzerland were left to reorganize themselves, affording in their rapid 
recovery from their desolate condition a strong evidence of the energy 
of the people. The organization then adopted, with some changes, exists 
at present. Forty years of exemption from war have obliterated the 
external marks of the misery of the country, but in the institutions of 
the different States the influence of their past history is still entirely 
visible. 

The rough sketches which I must pass rapidly before you, to give 
some idea of the present condition of the country, will be taken from 
the French and German cantons— those which exercise the most influ- 
ence upon Switzerland as it is, and as it will be. 

Geneva, the oldest city of the confederation, is the frontier town upon 
the southwest. Its foundation dates before that of Eome itself. The 
inhabitants were among those Helvetians whom the fortune of war at 
last put at the mercy of the Eomans who occupied the city with their 
legions. The Middle Ages found it a place of importance under the sov- 
ereignty of the Duke of Savoy ; the see of a bishop, nominated by the 
duke, who was the temporal as well as the ecclesiastical ruler. History 
represents its moral and intellectual condition to have been low, its 
commerce moderate. Under the preaching of Farel in 1535 the citizens 
declared for the Eeformation, and drove the bishop from their walls. 
In 1536, Calvin, a native of Picardy, came among them, and by his pow- 
erful preaching brought about a second reformation which changed 
entirely not only the face of society, but the habits and modes of thought 
and action of the people. 

At a little distance from the water the shores of Lake Lemau, or the 
Lake of Geneva, rise abruptly, and on this irregular ground, just where 
the Ehone issues from the lake, the city is built. The nature of the site 
thus divides Geneva into an upper and lower town. Below, and on the 



8 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

steep streets occupying the slope, are the houses and shops of the trades- 
men, and on the hill are those of the more wealthy citizens, once the 
Genevese aristocracy. The suburb on the opposite bank of the Ehone is 
joined by bridges to the old town, and rivals the hill-top, by its fine 
houses. The town is surrounded by ramparts, once of use to resist ene- 
mies and now affording pleasant promenades. These ramparts often 
protected the town in times gone by, but did not prevent its occupation by 
the French in 1798, and must necessarily yield to any enemy which has 
the means of bombarding the city. The conviction of their inutility has 
led the liberal governments of Berne and Zurich to raze these ramparts 
to the ground.* 

The anniversary of an unsuccessful attempt, by the Savoyards, in 1602? 
to surprise the city, is still celebrated. Under cover of a dark night, and 
by the use of scaling ladders painted black the better to conceal them, 
a party of the enemy's pioneers had mounted the walls and penetrated 
into the town, when they were discovered by the careless watch. The 
citizens were surprised but not daunted, and issuing from their houses 
with such arms as they could seize ; fell upon the invaders. The first gun 
fired from the ramparts carried away several of the scaling ladders, and 
prevented succor. In the morning the people assembled in the venerable 
church of St. Peter, when the pastor opened public worship by giving 
out the 124th Psalm ; and since, on every 12th of December, the same 
sounds arise from the voices of many worshipers : 

" If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say : 

'•' If it had not been the Lord who was. on oar side when men rose up against us." 

The University of Geneva was founded by Calvin, in 1564, and has 
always enjoyed a high reputation. In order to connect it advantage- 
ously with the grammar schools which prepare its pupils, the auditories 
have been provided, in which the character of the studies, the modes of 
teaching, and the discipline are intermediate between those of the school 
and of the university. Public instruction is under the control of the 
council of state, but while the impress of the best minds in this intel- 
lectual city is upon its higher institutions, the common schools are not, 
nor can they soon be made, what they ought to be. Like most of their 
fellow-republicans of the United States, the Genevese began their educa- 
tional edifice at the top. They have yet to learn that parsimony in 
education under a popular government is waste ; that unless instruction 
be really public it is better left entirely in the hands of individuals ; 
that it is in vain to move the waters and then to pretend to say to the 
raised wave, thus far shalt thou go and no farther. The Genevese youth 
of families in easy circumstances find means of the best education : do 
they on this account effectively control those to whom the so-called re- 
public gives less light ? Witness the frequent revolutions in this city, 
and these not always without bloodshed. The government is founded 

* The ramparts here referred to have all been removed, and Geneva at the present 
date (1671) presents no evidences of ever having been a fortified city. 



LECTURE OX SWITZERLAND. 9 

on a popular revolution, and all attempts to impede tlie progress of pop- 
ular institutions must in the end prove futile. If the light of education 
he denied to the people hy their rulers, the revolutions will be bloody; 
and in no case can there be happiness or safety without the full exercise 
of popular rights, by a thoroughly educated people.* 

Calvin, as head of the consistory, whose members then formed one- 
third of the council of state, governed Geneva, and impressed his -own 
austere character upon the laws and manners. Public amusements 
were prohibited and private regulated. The number of guests to be 
invited to weddings of the first, second, and third class, was made the 
subject of municipal regulation. All dancing was interdicted, and 
when it was found that if the violin were played people would dance, 
the use of the instrument was prohibited. The absence of light amuse- 
ments, together with religious feeling, naturally led to a greater use of 
those relaxations deemed lawful, and to the more active pursuit of science 
and literature by the better educated. Though times have changed in 
Geneva, in regard to religions creed as well as to amusements, the im- 
press of former days is still strong upon it, and those who term it " a 
little Paris " do not look beneath the surface. 

There is a curious mixture of the traits, manners, and modes of life 
of both France and England in this city, with a basis which is entirely 
Genevese. No less than ten thousand strangers, including, however, 
> Swiss of other cantons, reside permanently in a town of thirty thousand 
inhabitants, and the number passing through it in a year is reckoned to 
be as great as the population itself. The .influence of their manners is, 
of course, considerable, notwithstanding the exclusiveness of Genevese 
society. This exclusiveness is fostered among the ladies in the usual 
way, and among the men by clubs, literary, scientific, for conversation 
and mere amusement. It even begins among the children, who associ- 
ate in little knots called Sunday societies, the members of which keep 
up with each other the intercourse of cousins. Many Genevese enter 
into commercial life abroad, and after accumulating wealth return to 
their home, few (except those who have migrated to the United States) 
becoming identified with foreign countries. 

The most prominent business in Geneva is the manufacture of jewelry, 
and of watches. Each part of the watch is the special occupation of 
one class of workmen. Different portions of the works are made by 
peasants, but the finishing and putting together of the whole, as 
well as the manufacture of the cases, employ the artisans of Geneva. 
Nearly three thousand persons within the town, about one-fifth of 
the men, are occupied in the jewelers' and watch-makers' business, 
and twenty thousand watches are made annually, f The restrictive 

* The school system of Geneva has undergone a material change, and public schools 
of all grades are liberally provided for. 

t The census of 1870 show seven thousand persons engaged in watch-making, and 
upward of 200,000 watches made per annum. 



10 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

duties laid upon these manufactures by neighboring countries, and 
especially by France, have led to a regularly organized system of smug- 
gling, from which the government agents appear to derive a private 
revenue, and which is, therefore, very difficult to break up. It is said 
that a prefect of police of Paris, having bought at Geneva jewelry 
and watches to a considerable amount, the tradesman offered to deliver 
them in Paris for an additional sum much below the cost of carriage 
and the duties. The prefect made the agreement, and gave notice at the 
frontier custom-houses, describing the articles, and requiring even more 
than usual vigilance. The articles were, nevertheless, delivered to. him 
according to contract, and on investigation he found that they had 
passed the frontier in his own baggage. This is one of the devious 
ways of trade which is, I fear, not peculiar to any nation, and which 
the better moral tone to be cultivated by associations like that which I 
now address may and should correct. To elevate the watchmakers' 
art, a society has been formed for the preliminary education of appren- 
tices, and prizes for attainments in mathematics, drawing, and kindred 
subjects, are awarded to successful competitors. 

The political changes in Geneva have been of an instructive kind. 
The people declared for the Reformation, and threw off the authority of 
the Duke of Savoy. Thus the popular will was the basis of the exist- 
ence of the present government. The necessity for constant resistance 
to enemies without produced an easy concentration of power in the 
hands of a few, and by limiting the number of families from among the 
members of which the rulers were chosen, the government was rendered 
practically an aristocracy, not of rank, for the patricians of Geneva 
have always refused even this title, but of wealth and intelligence. The 
warfare of practice against principle has caused many revolutions, ail 
leading to an extension of popular privileges, and though likened by 
the Eaiperor Paul, of Russia, to storms in a tumbler, their influences, 
. direct and indirect, have spread widely. Between the year 1535, when 
the Bishop of Geneva was violently expelled from the city, and the year 
1837, there had been five revolutions, and including two unsuccessful 
but violent popular commotions, and seven attempts to alter the gov- 
ernment. And thus it must be until the end of the chapter, until privi- 
leges and rights are in harmony— until, in other words, Geneva is a true 
republic. 

The chief points of dispute still are (unless recent events have settled 
some of them) that the sovereignty of the people is not formally 
acknowledged ; that the representative council has no right to originate 
laws, but only to discuss those offered to them by the Council of State ; 
that the right of petition is not recognized, and that the privilege of 
voting is possessed only by those who pay a certain amount of taxes; 
the amount being fixed so high as to exclude about two-thirds of the 
citizens who are over age from the polls.* 

* All this has been changed by the constitution adopted May 24, 1847, the provisions 
whereof are essentially democratic. 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND H 

Take the agitation of this canton in connection with the fact that in 
the eight cantons having a popular form of government, there were no 
revolutions in 1830, the last marked period in the progress of these 
governments, and the lesson becomes even more instructive. 

How much do we not owe to our forefathers, who in establishing our 
republican system threw off the trammels of the Old World, and removed 
all such obstacles to our progress ! How clear their view of republican 
institutions when compared with those of the men of Europe, even in 
the present day ! 

One of the most important engines in the improvement of Switzer- 
land is the "■ Helvetic Society for public utility." * Its branches are scat- 
tered over the whole country, meeting frequently and maintaining a 
correspondence with the parent society through the medium of com- 
mittees. Delegates from the local associations meet in different parts 
of the country in turn, and discuss questions connected with education, 
political economy, and the general welfare of the country. The reports 
made at these meetings and the information laid before them are 
printed and disseminated through the confederation by the branch soci- 
eties. Independently of the influence thus exerted upon and through 
the reading community, the intercourse of enlightened men of different 
cantons is beneficial to the country, and the congregation of great and 
patriotic spirits has a good effect in the place of meeting. In the sum- 
mer of 1837 this society met at Geneva, and then for the first time some 
of the statesmen of the German cantons met their fellow-citizens of the 
French frontier. The first meeting in the illuminated botanic garden, 
the mornings in the representative hall devoted to discussions, the gen- 
eral meetings for meals, the soirees and suppers, each served in their 
place, (for the Swiss, like the English, Germans, and Americans, love 
good cheer,) to promote the objects of the meeting. The subjects dis- 
cussed in the council hall, show exactly the point to which the country 
has advanced. They were the importance of agricultural schools, and 
of schools for teachers, of saving-banks or funds, and the question 
whether those who in time of plenty (like the Pharaohs of old) hoard 
up grain to sell it at an advance in seasons of scarcity should not rather 
be considered benefactors of the public than objects of mob violence. 
The influence of high character was beautifully illustrated in one of 
these morning meetings. A warm debate had arisen upon the report 
of a committee proposing to establish schools under the direction of the 
society. The more the subject was discussed the further men's opin- 
ions appeared asunder. The keen politician of Geneva, with French 
vivacity, had made his declamation and ended with a phrase ; the enthu- 
siastic clergyman of Yaud, with somewhat of the old Calvin fire, had 
replied ; the veteran philanthropist of St. Gall had laid down the doc- 
trine by which he intended sturdily to abide. Union seemed impossible 
and discord probable, when there rose, near the president's chair, a man 

* Geineraniitzige Gesellschaft. 



12 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

heavy in countenance and in person, with an embarrassed air and awk- 
ward address, the words of his first few sentences of miserably pro- 
nounced French coming forth slowly, and almost by stammering. The 
natural reflection of a stranger would have been, why does that stupid 
man rise; what light can he expect to throw upon the question? Not 
so, thought his countrymen. They knew the mind that occupied this 
unpromising exterior, and all listened with entire attention to Hess, the 
burgomaster of Zurich, while by his own moderation he stifled theflame 
which had been burning so fiercely, and by his good sense united all the 
friends of education on a common ground of conciliation and compro- 
mise. The denial of self shown by thus using a language which was 
not familiar to him produced, also, doubtless a favorable impression. 
Those who afterward heard the same speaker in his vernacular rousing 
an assemblage by his eloquence, or moving them to laughter by his wit, 
must have found it difficult to recognize in the accomplished orator the 
embarassed speaker of the representative chamber. 

The canton of Geneva contains fifty-six thousand inhabitants, thirty 
thousand of whom live in the town. The adjoining canton of Vaud 
presents a striking contrast in this as in other respects, out of one hun- 
dred and eighty thousand people, only fourteen thousand being inhab- 
itants of Lausanne, the capital, and only considerable town in the 
canton.* The people of Vaud pride themselves upon their ultra-repub- 
licanism, their orthodoxy in religion, their present moral and social 
condition, and the broad basis laid in their institutions for farther 
improvement ; the carrying out of the cantonal motto of " liberty and 
country." Their constitution declares the sovereignty of the people and 
the equality of all citizens in the eye of the law, guarantees individual 
liberty, the right of property, the inviolability of domicile, the freedom 
of the press, and the right of petition. It provides for the separation 
of the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities, a feature so 
universal in our constitutions that we are surprised to find it gen- 
erally overlooked by the framers of the Swiss. All citizens have a 
right to vote at twenty-three years of age. The church is, as in 
all these countries, connected with the state, and is styled in the 
constitution the National Evangelical Eeformed Church. Worship 
according to the forms of the Eoman Catholic Church is guaranteed 
to some of the communes, and there this church is also connected 
with the state. The voluntary church system as it exists with us is 
almost unknown, and it would be difficult to. imagine the first effects of 
severing church and state among a people where the connection has 
always existed ; yet some of the clergy of Vaud look to the separation 
as conferring a desirable freedom upou their church. As evidences of 
the moral condition of Vaud may be mentioned that in 1836 there was 

* The census of 1870 gives to the canton of Geneva a population of 89,416, whereof 
about one-half live in the city proper. According to the same authority, the canton of 
Vaud has a population of 229,596, and Lausanne 25,000. 



LECTUEE ON SWITZERLAND. 13 

but one criminal for every one thousand seven hundred and eighty 
inhabitants; while in Massachusetts, also an agricultural community, 
there was last year one criminal in one hundred and fifty; and counting 
only natives of the State, one in seven hundred and fifty. These people 
have laid .broad and deep the foundations of improvement in an 
admirable system of public instruction, combining, as all are of one mode 
of faith, religious and intellectual culture. The law declares that the 
happiness of a people is to be found in good morals and good instruction, 
and that in a free country every citizen should have put within his reach 
an education fitting him for his rights and duties. It has not stopped 
at any point in public education, saying you of a certain class shall have 
such schools, and you such others, but has divided the schools accord- 
ing to the age and attainments of the children, and, for those on the 
threshold of active life, according to the probable future pursuit of the 
individual. Thus they have elementary schools, middle or industrial 
schools, a college, a university, and schools for male and female teachers. 
In a canton where suffrage is universal, the legislature has had the 
boldness to require that all children from the age of seven to sixteen 
shall be under instruction, unless capable of passing a certain examina- 
tion. Parents who neglect or refuse to send their children to school 
are cited before the authorities and fined ; in case of a repetition of the 
offense may be imprisoned, and thus deprived for a time of the rights 
of citizenship. Whether this provision can be fully executed or not yet 
remains to be seen ; at present it is a salutary stimulus to the negli- 
gent. The ground of its adoption is, that universal suffrage requires 
universal education, and that as the law guarantees to citizens the one, 
it has a right to demand of them the other. The middle or industrial 
schools are colleges for business men preparing for the pursuits of com- 
merce and the mechanic arts, and bearing the same relation to these 
pursuits that the colleges do to the professions of medicine, law, and 
theology. The canton has a school for the deaf and dumb, and one for 
the blind at Yverdon. 

The prison discipline, like our own, puts in action the benevolent idea 
of reforming the delinquents; but the horror of solitary confinement 
which appears to exist in the mind of every one allied, even remotely, 
to the French has marred the system both in Lausanne and at Geneva. 
Happily the care which is taken in collecting the statistics of the prisons 
must gradually lead to a change. Finding that there are as many cases of 
recommitment now as under the old arrangement, they will see that 
with the gregarious system, even with work, there can be no reform. 

This canton was the last scene of the labors of the great reformer in 
education, Pestalozzi. At Yverdon, on the shores of Lake Neufchatel, 
in a castle erected for war, but turned to purposes of peace, he termi- 
nated his active, beneficent, but stormy life. He was the Bacon of 
education. Adhering rigidly to the laws of induction, he changed the 
very basis of the sciences. He combined those extraordinary qualities 



14 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

of the German character, simplicity, enthusiasm, rationalism, and its 
opposite, mysticism. As a practical teacher he has been surpassed by 
many of his followers, but he was undoubtedly the founder of a new 
school in education. Restless, and always dissatisfied with the results 
of his efforts, he began many times afresh, and to the last, with 
renewed hope of entire success. Unqualified to manage pecuniary 
matters, his mind was always oppressed with the details of the economy 
of his schools as soon as they became large. Prussia owes the present 
improved condition of her burgher or citizen schools — for her " schools 
for the poor" — are poor indeed to the precepts and examples of those 
who drew both from Pestalozzi. A school nominally conducted upon 
his principles is still kept up in the old castle, but resembles much 
the deformed copies from the same model which we have seen in this 
country. 

Before leaving the southern part of Switzerland, let us pass for a few 
minutes into the canton of the Valais and among the Alps, not to ad- 
mire scenery but to observe Swiss enterprise. Railroads are out of the 
question in such a country, and places for canals are rarely to be found, 
but improvements peculiar to the country take their places, and require 
both skill and originality. 

In one of the narrow valleys of the Valais, a tributary to the Dranse 
(itself a branch of the Rhone) takes its rise in the melting snows of 
the glacier of Getroz. This mass of snow and ice is formed by the 
accumulation of snow upon two mountain flanks, which, descending and 
uniting in the gorge, are slowly pushed forward into the valley, melting 
as they advance, and feeding with innumerable rills the turbid Dranse. 
In the spring of 1818 the waters of the stream were very low, and as 
this circumstance had preceded a dreadful inundation of the valley of 
Bagnes in 1595, the peasants taking alarm moved up the valley to 
ascertain the present cause. They found that the fall of large blocks of 
ice from the glacier of Getroz, and of avalanches from the mountain 
sides, had completely dammed up the waters of the Dranse. The icy 
barrier is described to have beeu four hundred feet high, six hundred 
feet wide at the top, and three thousand feet at its base,- the lake 
behind it was a mile and a quarter long, and at the barrier some fifty 
fathoms deep. The waters in this basin rose at the rate of two feet per 
day, and it was almost certain that finally, rising to a height capable of 
bursting the wall of ice which held them in, they would in their mighty 
rush sweep the valley to the very banks of. the Rhone. The engineer 
of the canton, M. Venetz, made a bold attempt to prevent this disaster, 
which, if it did not entirely succeed, greatly diminished the dreaded 
devastation. A tunnel through the ice was commenced at a sufficient 
height above the swelling waters to prevent their reaching the laborers 
before its completion. Two sets of workmen labored day and night for 
nearly a month in its formation. When first finished it was not of suf- 
ficient size to prevent the rise of the lake, but widening and deepening 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 15 

i 

from the flow of water through it, in thirty-two hours it had drained 
off ten feet in depth of the lake, and in twenty-four hours more, twenty 
feet. More than one-third of the water had thus escaped when the 
action of the issuing cataract upon the base of the mound had so far 
weakened it by detaching large masses of ice, that the harrier was sud- 
denly hurst asunder. With a dreadful noise the liberated waters took 
their way down the valley in one mountain wave, carrying before them 
enormous rocks, the forest and hill-side, fields, fruit-trees and fences, 
bridges and chalets, and furrowing or covering the low grounds with 
the debris of the mountains. The destruction is represented to have 
been terrible, in all but that of life approaching that of the previous 
catastrophe. The energies of this simple people were but for a time 
paralyzed by this dire misfortune, and means were almost immediately 
taken to repair its effects and prevent its recurrence. 

Captain Hall, who visited the scene just after the disaster, and again 
after an interval of fifteen years, thus speaks of the first appearance 
and of the change which industry had wrought during the interval : 
a We said to ourselves, that no time could ever restore their town (Mar- 
tigny) to prosperity, or reclothe their fields with verdure. Yet, only 
fifteen years afterward, when I again visited this scene of utter, and, 
as it seemed, hopeless desolation, I could scarcely by any effort of the 
imagination recall the spot to my mind, or be persuaded that it really 
was the same ground I had seen laid waste. * * * * 
The fields were all again thickly matted with verdure ; the hedges and 
dividing walls appeared -never to have been disturbed $ flower-gardens 
and kitchen-gardens and grass-plots smiled on every side of this happy 
valley ; apple-trees, laden with fruit, and rows of tall poplars marked 
out many lines of new and better roads than before, leading from new 
bridges which formerly had no existence." The date of the first disas- 
ter was found inscribed upon a beam in one of the chalets, accompanied 
by a set of letters ; the whole may be thus paraphrased : M. O. E. | 
1595. | W. B. W. D. B. | T. G. O. G. The puzzle has been thus deci- 
phered by a Swiss Monkbarns : Maurice Olliet erected, 1595, when 
Bagnes was destroyed by the glacier of Getroz. 

Friburg lies between Vaud on the south and Berne on the north. 
It was the ninth canton admitted into the confederation. From having 
been the most aristocratic of all — some sixteen families governing 
seventy thousand people — it is now almost as liberal as Yaud. Suffrage 
is universal and the press is free. The religion of the state is Eoman 
Catholic, the bishop still retaining the title of Bishop of Lausanne and 
Geneva. Party spirit, probably, run higher in this canton than in any 
other. The old aristocracy has its friends, though in the minoritj". The 
republicans, who triumphed in the revolution of 1830, excluded the clergy 
from the councils, but their influence still maintains a party there, and 
the church itself is divided between the rival influences of the Cordeliers 
and of the Jesuits. There are nine convents in the canton, a lyce^ro 



1G LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

or college and a boarding-school, in the capital. The clergy have not 
abandoned the claim, though deprived of the power to direct the secular 
instruction of the people, to license and displace their teachers. The 
struggles of these parties and influences keep up a constant political 
excitement. 

It is difficult for a stranger who approaches the town of Friburg 
from the French cantons, on a day when the weekly fair is held, to be- 
lieve that a scene of real life is before him. The old battlemented walls, 
w.ith their towers, carry us back to the days of arquebusses and culverins, 
or even to those of cross-bows and catapults. The collection of peasants 
in the square, clad in the varied and picturesque costumes of the adjoin- 
ing districts, keeps up the illusion. It is easy to realize that such look- 
ing people should sing and dance, but that they should buy and sell in 
earnest is not so easily credited. There is some poetry left yet in the 
exterior of life, at least in these countries. This thought was again 
awakened on finding myself in the cell of a monk in the convent of the 
Cordeliers. The vaulted ceiling, grated door, bare walls, the pallet bed 
and rude table, with missal and crucifix, the occupant clothed in coarse 
black serge, the cord of his order passing around his waist, produced a 
most singular effect. There was nothing in the manners and conversa- 
tion of the venerable Father Girard to dispel any illusion created by 
the circumstances around him, unless the faintest possible tinge of the 
world, such as he may have got while superintending the schools of his 
canton just after the revolution of 1814. Hoping to dull the edge of 
party spirit which he supposed attacked the schools because a Cordelier 
was at the head of them, he retired into voluntary exile for ten years, 
and returned, at the age of seventy-two, to die, as he said, at home, 
when his years would be an apology for not mingling in public affairs. 
He had returned to find his schools in incompetent hands, almost in 
decay, and his normal school, from a similar cause, on the point of 
being abolished. Imbued with the spirit of Pestalozzi, Father Girard 
gives to the languages as instruments for intellectual training the part 
which the great master assigned to the sciences ; for economy's sake he 
adopted the monitorial system, but hoped to see the time when it might 
gi ve place to a better. In his retirement his influence with the intelligent 
men of Switzerland was very great, and was exercised to forward the intel- 
lectual progress of his country. " I love all men with Christian hearts, 
though they may not be orthodox in formulary ; such is my profession of 
faith,"' was the catholic sentiment of this truly good man, reminding 
me of the beautiful lines of Wordsworth, written at Friburg : 

" Doom'd as we are our native dust 
To wet with many a bitter shower, 

It ill befits us to disdain 

The altar, to deride the fane 
Where patient Sufferers bend, in trust, 
To win a happier hour. 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 17 

" Where'er we roam, along the brink 
Of Rhine, or by the sweeping Po, 

Through Alpine vale, or champaign wide — 
Whate'er we look upon — at our side 
Be charity — to bid as think, 
And feel — if we would know." 

The situation of Friburg has afforded opportunity for two pieces of 
characteristic enterprise. The channel of the river Sarine forms al- 
most a loop at the town, inclosing it on three sides, and flowing in a 
deep sandstone valley. The town occupies the top and sides of the 
promontory thus formed, and on the steep slope the tops of the houses 
below are on a level with the pavement of the streets above. Into this 
ralley the road to Berne formerly descended, and mounted a precipitous 
hill on* the other side of the stream, occupying, with its windings aud 
the slow pace by which it was necessarily traversed, an hour, and to pass 
from one side of the valley to the other, a distance in a straight line of 
some three hundred yards. A beautiful suspension bridge now connects 
the upper plateau of the town with, a point equally high on the oppo- 
site bank, the suspending cables of wire being firmly fastened in the 
massive rock on either side, and passing over two neat piers of Jura 
limestone. This bridge was planned by an engineer of Lyons, but exe- 
cuted by Swiss workmen, aud entirely with Swiss materials. The road- 
way is eight hundred and ninety-six feet in length between the piers, 
or two and a half times as long as the elegant structure of the same 
kind now erected over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, and once and a 
half as long as the celebrated chain bridge over the Menai Strait in 
Wales. The road-way is suspended at the height of one hundred and 
seventy-four feet above the Saarine, and. looking up from the valley the 
curved wire ropes which support the whole resemble mere cords pro- 
jected against the sky, while the upright wires by which the platform 
hangs appear like cobwebs. The trials to which this structure was sub- 
jected by the authorities before receiving it were many and severe, the 
hardest that of marching across it two thousand people keeping step to 
music, the measured cadence producing a continually increasing vibra- 
tion, and trying the strength to the utmost. The successful completion 
of this work and its durability have led to the erection of a second of 
the same kind at another point of the valley ; so that this little town of 
nine thousand inhabitants may now boast of two of the most beautiful 
bridges in the world. 

Berne, the capital of the largest and most populous canton of the 
Swiss confederacy, is, in appearance, thoroughly a Swiss town of the 
old school. Its site is a bold promontory, like that of Friburg, nearly 
surrounded by the Aar, a tributary of the Bhine. The appearance of 
Berne is very quaint. Entering it from the south, three gateways are 
passed in succession, at intervals from each other, beneath towers which 
mark so many epochs in the extension of the walled town. Before the 
2 



18 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

use of artillery Berne was a place of great strength, the site having been 
selected in the twelfth century for its military properties, by Bertholcl, 
of Zahringen, the founder of the city. The fronts of the houses in the 
principal streets, as in the Italian towns of the Middle Ages, rest upon 
arcades, which form covered walks for passengers. The heavy piers of 
the arcades render the shops dark, but this inconvenience is more than 
counterbalanced by the protection from the winter's snow in a town 
almost among the Alps, and at an elevation of sixteen hundred feet 
above the sea. The streets are provided at intervals with fountains of 
curious devices and rude execution, in which, besides the figure of the 
bear in various " armor and attitude," are warriors and goddesses, and 
remarkable above all, the terror of children, the great Kinder-fresser, or 
ogre, who, with the head and shoulders of one poor innocent in his gap- 
ing mouth, in the very act of swallowing, has a bag full of similar choice 
mouthfuls about his neck, apparently struggling to escape the fate of 
their comrade. In one of the towers is the famous clock of kindred 
taste with the ogre. Before each hour a cock flaps his wings and crows 
a warning. A figure representing Father Time reverses his hour glass, 
and opens his mouth as if to cry aloud to the careless. At noon is the 
grand procession of the bears, who, marshaled by knights and soldiers, 
issue to the sound of music and pass before the figure of Time first on 
all fours, then half erect, and finally rampant, figuring thus the differ- 
ent conditions of the town of which they are the patrons. The figure 
now raises a wand and strikes the hour upon a mimic bell, keeping time 
with the striking of the clock ; the cock again flaps his wings, and for 
twenty-four hours the bears have rest. The regard for bruin in Berne 
has been the growth of ages. The accidental killing of a bear by the Duke 
of Zahringen on the day of founding the city placed the effigy upon the 
coat of arms, and perhaps gave name to the infant city, for Berne sig- 
nifies bear in the Swabian dialect. The effigy of the bear was connected 
with the conquests of the warlike burghers, and the living animal kept 
to amuse the people by his antics. A whimsical old lady left a hand- 
some estate to the town to maintain a family of bears, forever, and in 
1798 the animal became associated with the misfortunes of the canton 
as it had been with its rise and prosperity. The savings from the estate 
of the bears shared the fate of those of the canton, when the French 
armies appropriated the thirty millions of specie in the vaults of the 
treasury. The bears themselves were removed from their ditch and 
transported to Paris, the huge cage containing the father of the family 
having upon it the insulting inscription, not yet forgotten by the people, 
of Avoyer (President) of Berne. One only lived to return to his home 
at the general restoration of the spoils of Europe, but the bears of the 
present generation appear to have forgiven or forgotten the sorrows of 
their parents, and, all unconscious of their own present dependent state, 
are as diligent in climbing poles, and as active in begging and quarrel- 
ing for nuts and gingerbread as if the present bear-ditch had always 



LECTUEE ON SWITZERLAND. 19 

been the abode of both parents and cubs. How difficult it must De for 
the men of Berne among the scenes of the Middle Ages, and with his- 
tory and tradition both fettering them, to keep up with the progress of 
the times 5 and yet they have done so in a very great degree, as a glance 
at the institutions of the republic will show. 

In 1785 there were but two hundred and thirty-six families, the 
members of which were eligible to the grand council, the governing 
body of a canton of three hundred thousand inhabitants, and of its 
tributaries, Vaud inclusive. These were the descendants of the original 
burghers of Berne, and of those whom they had admitted from time to 
time into their fraternity. Many of them were members of one of the 
live guilds, the bakers, butchers, tanners, smiths, and carriers, originally 
an aristocracy of working men. Of the two hundred and thirty-six 
families only seventy-six were eligible to the executive or lesser council, 
and twenty of these, by the preponderance of numbers, governed the 
State. In 1796 there were twenty-two persons of the name and family 
of Steiger in the grand council, fifteen of Watwyl, and so on. It was 
certainly no easy task to undo the Gordian knot of such institutions, 
but the French invasion sundered it, and the complete separation of 
social and political ties which followed prevented a firm reunion of the 
parts. A feeble aristocratic government was restablished under the 
protection of Austria, after the French occupation ceased, and was 
continued until 1830. At this time the revolution of the three days in 
Paris gave a new impulse to popular institutions by the support which 
it promised to hold out to their frrends. The people of the country 
parts of Berne met in their arrondissements and r>etitioned the govern- 
ment for an extension of popular rights. They were answered by pro- 
hibiting their assembling. They continued to meet, and the govern- 
ment ordered out the militia to suppress these meetings, and collecting 
their most trustworthy troops in the town, closed the gates and pre- 
pared the cannon upon the ramparts for action against the peasantry. 
The militia refused to turn out ; the troops in the town declared their 
unwillingness to act against their countrymen. No attack was made, 
but the government wisely determined on abdication, declaring that on 
a certain day they would cease their functions if such was the will of 
the people. This was all that was desired. An assembly was called to 
frame a constitution, and without any violent shock, in October, 1831, the 
old aristocratic government gave place to the new republican, in which 
although there is some leaven of the former aristocracy, it is not suffi- 
cient to leaven the lump. This is a true history of a Swiss republican 
revolution. The new constitution declares the sovereignty of the people, 
the liberty of the press, the right of the representative council to origin- 
ate measures, toleration of religion with an established national church. 
Every citizen is an elector of the first grade; and every hundred of 
them chooses an elector of the second grade, who votes for the repre- 
sentative council. As in the other cantons, with few exceptions, the 



20 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

powers of government are mingled, and what strikes an American as 
even more strange, while the representative council is elected for six 
years, the judges chosen by them are elected but for five. 

One of the first steps of the new government was to reorganize and 
renovate public instruction. A visit to the normal school established 
by them must inspire bright anticipations of future improvement for 
the country. Patriotism, religious and moral feeling, and intelligence, 
are developed by precept and example in those who are hereafter to 
have the training of the Bernese youth. The industrious life of these 
future teachers, eleven hours being spent in the school-room, in receiv- 
ing or imparting instruction, their frugal fare, meat of any kind being 
placed before them but twice in each week, and their coarse clothing, are all 
shared with them by the director of the institution. Severe exercise in 
the open air, through the gymnastics so popular in Germany and Switzer- 
land, counteracts, in a degree, the effect of this sedentary life upon their 
health. In addition to the branches usually cultivated in our schools, 
music is made a part of the teacher's education, that he may, in turn, 
give instruction in it to all his pupils. The effect produced by the deep 
toned and well tuned voices of the young teachers in this normal school, 
engaged in singing, con amore, some of the patriotic songs of their 
country, was one of the most moving that I ever experienced. What a 
fine material for republicans ! was the remark of the counsellor of state 
who accompanied me, the echo of the very feeling which was thrilling 
through me. Close by this school is Hofwyl, the celebrated institution 
of Emmanuel Fellenberg. But to venture within its precincts would 
occupy you far longer than I am privileged to do. The system of this 
establishment, for it is not one school, but is composed of several schools 
of different grades, has served, in a degree, as a model for that of the 
canton, and has exerted a greater influence in and out of Switzerland 
than any other single institution in the world. 

The new government has reorganized and improved many of the pub- 
lic establishments of the canton, and created new ones. Thus the two 
orphan houses of the city have already felt its favorable influence ; a 
school for the deaf and dumb, and one for the blind, has been estab- 
lished under its patronage, and a new penitentiary has been erected for 
the introduction of the modern improvements in prison discipline. In 
1819 women condemned for crimes swept the streets of Berne, and now 
the government is nearly prepared to adopt the Pennsylvania system of 
prison discipline. Surely the progress of this people has been worthy 
of, if not above, all praise. 

On the eastern side of the town the bank of the Aar is quite precip- 
itous, aud from the parapet which crowns it a glimpse is had into that 
fairy-land, the Oberland of Berne. The peaks of its snow-clad hills, with 
their bold outline, cut sharply against the sky, presenting, in the course 
of a clear day, a beautiful variety of aspect, from the dark shadows cast 
by the rising sun, and the brilliancy of mid-day, to the delicate hues at 



LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 21 

sunset, and the ashy and almost ghastly paleness of the evening. One 
of the few things which cannot disappoint is a visit to the Bernese Alps. 
Nature presents itself not only upon a grand scale, hut in unusual and 
varied forms. Lofty and precipitous mountains, rugged with rocks, 
and ice, and snow ; glaciers pushing their way from the steep mountain 
sides into the valleys; avalanches tumbling headlong from the heights, 
and with a roar like distant thunder burying their ice and snow in the 
deep gorges ; cascades pouring from precipices so lofty that the water 
is dispersed in dust-like spray, in mid-air, or tumbling from rock to 
rock in foaming sheets ; pine-clad hills, and valleys green with grass; 
all these, in turn, rejoice the sight, while the unaccustomed modes 
of Alpine traveling invigorate the frame, and the spirits rise until 
they create a world of enjoyment of their own. The works of man 
lend themselves to nature, to add to the picturesque character of these 
regions ; for the Swiss cottage, with its roof weighted with stones, its 
projecting eaves and out-door galleries, is unlike a farm-house elsewhere, 
and the chalet, with its stable, dwelling, and dairy, all under one roof, 
yet separated with scrupulous regard to neatness, is as unlike a peas- 
ant's hut. The costume of the people, too, puts them to the eye of a 
stranger in constant masquerade, and the vocal music, with its curious 
falsetto tones, and the instrumental upon the wooden tube, or Alpine 
horn, are unlike what is to be heard in other countries. 

The valley of Grindelwald is itself more than three thousand feet 
above the level of the sea, and from it the Faulhorn rises three thou- 
sand more. The ascent of this mountain is by winding paths, along 
the base or on the brink of high rocks, by the side of ponds formed by 
the melting snow, through the snows themselves, to the very apex. 
Then the whole district of the lakes of Brientz and Thun is stretched out 
before and far below you, the lake of Lucerne and its mountains, the 
valleys of Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, the Alpine heights of the 
Eiger, the Monk, the Jungfrau, and others of this chain, far across to the 
mountains where the Bhine and the Bhone both have their sources. 
Above' the region where the white hill-clouds of summer are formed and 
rest, when they occur spreading a deep shade over the valleys below, the 
top of the Faulhorn is in the full blaze of the sun, and the eye ranges from 
it upon the expanse of the tops of the white clouds, as over a vast plain 
of snow thrown into ridges by the wind, a mimic ocean of snow with the 
forms of waves without their motion. Life in a chalet upomsuch a moun- 
tain is very little like that in an inn down in the valley. The whole moun- 
tain-top will hardly give elbow-room to the twenty or thirty people who 
come up on a fine summer's day, much less will the chalet give room for 
exclusiveness in eating, drinking, or sleeping. Then, further, to break 
clown reserve, the sunset is to be seen by all, and then the moon, at rising 
or setting, puts the whole sleeping household in motion, and again all are 
out to see the sun rise over the distant Alps. 

There are some traits by which one may infallibly recognize our coun- 



'22 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

trymen, aud in this chalet with, us was an undoubted American. He 
talked to every one who could speak his vernacular, and spoke to every 
one who would give his broken French an answer. His meals were 
bolted down in haste. He fidgeted lest he should lose anything of the 
moon or snn rise, and actually turned out to witness the former in regu- 
lar Kickapoo style, wrapped in a blanket. He was restless to an excess, 
and talked all the time that others were absorbed in sentiment; for- 
getting his unpresentable condition, he even addressed some young- 
English ladies, who had certainly offered no special encouragement to the 
approach of any fellow-traveller, even in full costume. He was off 
among the first in the morning, and after the day's journey we met him 
in the evening at Meyringen, still talkative as ever, and his tones certi- 
fying that he came from the east of the Hudson • so far, the very beau- 
ideal of the American figured by tourists. Here, however, he piqued my 
curiosity by the very un-American act of abusing the supper, as well as 
by some peculiarity of expression,* and, entering into further conversa- 
tion with him, I found that this undoubted American was last from Thread 
and Needle street, had been born and bred in the old country, and had 
not eveu trodden our republican soil. So much for national character- 
istics, which, like family peculiarities, may sometimes lead us to mis- 
take the father for the sou. 

On the way from the Oberland to Lucerne we pass a work of improve- 
ment well worthy of notice. At the foot of the Brunig Mountain, on 
the north side, is the small lake of Lungern, draining the slopes of a 
basin of moderate extent, aud having originally no outlet. It is sepa- 
rated by a mountain ridge from the lake of Sarnen, which commu 
nicates with the lake of Lucerne. Lake Lungern is some four hun- 
dred feet higher than Lake Sarnen, so that by establishing a com- 
munication between them the former might be drained to any re 
quired amount, and arable land be thus gained upon the lake shore. 
A tunnel to establish this connection was begun in 1788, and after many 
delays was completed in 1836, at the cost of $25,000, and nineteen thou- 
sand days' work by the peasants. The winter season, when the lake is 
lowest, was chosen for completing the tunnel by breaking through a 
rocky barrier into Lake Lungern. The undertaking succeeded, and in 
ten days the water fell to the level of the mouth of the tunnel. A new 
and unforeseen danger now threatened the people of the village on the 
lake shore. «The bank, no longer supported by the water, and exposed 
to the action of the frost, began to crack, and the earth separating from 
the underlying rock, threatened to precipitate the church and part of 
the village into the lake. In fact a slide did take place, but only to a 
limited extent, and by cutting the shores in terraces the progress of the 
evil has been stopped, and the gain of about five hundred acres of ara- 
ble land may be considered as permanent. 

The town of Lucerne, the capital of the canton of the same name, and 
formerly in rotation with Berne and Zurich, the seat of the sessions of the 



LECTUEE ON SWITZERLAND. 16 

Swiss Diet, is beautifully situated on the lake of the Forest cantons, 
on a level piece of ground, at the point where the Eeuss issues from the 
lake to join the Linimat in its course to the Ehine. Lucerne, on a gala 
day, presents an interesting sight to the stranger. When I saw it, the 
people in holiday dress were collecting from all quarters to the lake 
side; the long wooden bridges which join the different parts of the town, 
and the stone-lined quays along the Eeuss, were thronged with people 
pressing toward the same point. The women from the country wearing 
the hair plaited on the crown of the head, or black caps with mohair 
lace wings, and long plaits of hair and black ribbons falling down the 
back, accompanied by men in plain attire, all speaking the harsh patois 
derived from the Southern German. Even the bridge from the Abbey 
had its passengers, though now few indeed in numbers, and a few Cor- 
deliers were seen mingling with the throng. The windows of the tall 
houses near the wharf presented an array of the notables of Lucerne, 
and even some members of the diet might be pointed out to the stranger. 
The bells were ringing at intervals, and cannon pointed toward the 
lake were prepared for a salute. The American smiles complacently 
when told the cause of all this circumstance. The first steamboat navi- 
gating the lake is expected on its first return trip from Altdorf, and 
even now may be seen rounding a neighboring point. The excitement 
increases as the wonderful boat approaches, and we are carried in im- 
agination back to the days of 1807, when New York poured out its popu- 
lation to greet the return of the first adventure of the great Fulton. 
No doubt now mingles, as then it did, with expectation, and amid the 
hoarse noise of loud German exclamations and hurrahs, and the discharge 
of artillery, the boat approaches. It is wonderful to see how at once 
the art of managing the vessel has been acquired ! How imitative a 
creature man is ! The captain is mounted upon the wheel-guard directing 
the pilot and engineer with his hand. The headway is checked judi- 
ciously, and now the boat nears the wharf. With what precision and 
skill this manoeuvre is executed for the first time ! The thought is hardly 
complete, when rising loud and clear above the hoarse gutturals of the 
mob, comes to do away all mystery, to explain the whole, in good home- 
spun English, the well-known cry of "Stop her!" The engine was 
built in England, put up by Englishmen, and is now managed in its first 
trial by them ; and thus the mechanics and manufacturers of that great 
nation lay not only Switzerland, but all the continent of Europe, under 
contribution, as a return for the money spent abroad by her travelers. 

The Swiss Confederacy is, politically considered, even a weaker gov- | 
eminent than ours was under the old Articles of Confederation ; at all 
events weaker for every purpose not merely military. The act of con- 
federation now in force dates from 1815, and all the attempts made 
since its adoption to modify it so as to produce a stronger government, 
by cementing the union more closely, have failed. The cantonal spirit 
resists the least encroachments upon its independence. The act of con- 



24 LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 

- 
federation guarantees to each canton its liberty, its independence, its 

safety from foreign aggression, and peace and tranquillity within. To 
maintain this guarantee and to preserve the armed neutrality of Switzer- 
land, a contingent of 33,000 men and $140,000 is required from the can- 
tons in proportion to their population and other circumstances. 
The modified constitution declared every Swiss to be a soldier, express- 
ing only what is the fact, the military spirit being kept constantly 
alive from the belief that it is essential to the independence of the coun- 
try. In case of the invasion of a canton, or of violence against the 
actual government, the confederation is bound, # upon a summons, to 
an armed intervention; and, in case of necessity, a neighboring canton 
may lend its aid. This provision has been a fertile source of difficulty, 
for on the one hand the cantons claim the right of revolution, and, on 
the other, the diet that of intervention. The cantons have no right to 
form leagues with each other. ISTo privileged classes may be established 
in any of them. The' transit of articles of merchandise and manu- 
factures, and of the necessaries of life, through the different cantons is 
guaranteed. Such are the leading articles of the constitution. 

The diet is the highest authority of the confederacy, and consists of 
deputies from the twenty-two cantons, who vote, unless specially in- 
vested with discretionary power, according to instructions derived from 
the cantonal governments. Each canton has one vote in the diet. The 
regular meetings of this body are held yearly, and the senior deputy of 
the canton where the meeting is held presides. Executive power during 
the recess of the diet may be vested in the authorities of the canton 
where the meeting of the year is to be held, or in a special executive 
council. The diet declares war and makes treaties of peace and alliance; 
such measures requiring a majority of three-fourths of the votes.* 

In the summer of 1837 the diet met at Lucerne. The stormy session 
of the year before at Berne, in w r hich they had borne themselves so gal- 
lantly in opposition to the demands of France, was still fresh in the 
recollection; but with the adjustment of the difficulties the excitement 
produced by them had subsided. On that occasion it was said that 
Switzerland had. spoken even in a, boasting tone, or, in the language of 
the French journalists, as if she were a first-rate power instead of a 
fourth. The national feeling which dictated this tone may be explained 
and felt by the remark of Professor Monnard, of Vaud, by whom the 



* The foregoing remarks apply to the political condition of the Swiss Confederation 
previous to the 12th of September, 1848, when the revised federal constitution now in 
force was adopted. This instrument is very similar to that of the United States, only 
paying somewhat more deference to states rights, aud vesting the executive power in 
a cabinet (federal council) elected by congress in joint session, the chairman whereof 
being denominated President of Switzerland. The legislative authority is vested in a 
federal assembly, (congress,) composed of a national council (house of representatives) 
and a staenderath or States council, (senate :) the supreme court and executive au- 
thority being both elected by*the federal assembly or congress, in joint session, in which 
is vested the supreme power of the laud. Berne is the' permanent capital. 



LECTUEE ON SWITZERLAND. 25 

threatening language was spoken, " we cannot recognize a first-rate and 
a second-rate national honor." 

There is still something of the " feudalism of democracy," as a dis- 
tinguished author has called it, in the ceremonies of the diet, walking 
in procession to their hall where their deliberations take place, wearing 
cloaks einbroided with the arms of their cantons, and even of more than 
one color, received by double rows of guards, and deliberating with 
swords by their sides. The antiquated costumes are destined to disap- 
pear with many feudal forms, but the delegates from those cantons, the 
democratic, where tbe least change has taken place in their institutions, 
are wedded to their old garments as well as to the old constitution. In 
the hall of meeting twenty-one seats are arraflged about an oval table 
for the senior representatives, the president having his seat at the one 
extremity of the table, and the consulting deputies occupying small 
tables in the rear. The members do not rise when addressing the chair, 
which has an awkward effect, and must be embarrassing to the lively 
delegates of the Italian and French cantons ; but all minor embarrass- 
ments yield to that of the use of three different languages, the French, Ger- 
man, and Italian, by members from the different cantons^ while a major- 
ity of the deputies understand but one. A glance at these representa- 
tives will illustrate tbe difficulties of forming a Swiss union. What has 
the man of Tessin really in common with him of Geneva "? The one is a 
Eoman Catholic, the other a Calviuist ; the one a republican of the most 
democratic school, the other an aristocrat by principle, and perhaps by 
birth ; the one is from a rough pastoral or agricultural district, the other 
from a city where the more refined mechanic arts flourish ; the one from 
a small community, all the members of which are nearly equal in the 
means of life and in education, the other from a town where wealth and 
education are very unequally distributed ; the one in speech an Italian, 
the other a Frenchman. Again, what has the educated and polished 
professor of Lausanne, or the merchant and banker of Basle, in common 
with the peasant of Appenzele or the shepherd of Fri? "With all these 
diversities they are brought together in part by a sentiment — the love 
of liberty ; in part by a necessity — that of mutual defense. The progress 
of the cantons in education and the arts of life will doubtless draw their 
bonds gradually closer, and to have attempted a union in 1832 is to 
have laid the basis for it at some other time. Meanwhile the confeder- 
ation, if it does not directly aid the cantons in their career of improve- 
ment, at least goes far to guarantee the continuation of that peace which 
is essential to progress. 

Let us turn our backs upon the mountains, to glance merely, for that 
is all that can be attempted, at Zurich, one of the cantons of the plain, 
if any part of Switzerland can be called a plain ; one of the farthest 
advanced of all in the mechanic arts, manufactures, education, and good 
government. Here the republican change was brought about in 1830, 
by a simple change of administration, the council not being required to 




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LECTURE ON 



SWITZERLAND. 021 636 951 8 



abdicate as at Berne, and up to this time a struggle for power goes on 
between the partisans of a former order of things and the clergy against 
the new order, and, from time to time, one or the other influence pre- 
vails. The canton, meanwhile, steadily advances. Suffrage is univer- 
sal ; the right to vote beginning at twenty years of age. 

The progress of the canton since the new order of things may be best 
illustrated by a few facts. The press is free, the legislative, executive, 
and judicial departments have been separated, public instruction has 
been set forth as one of the first duties of the state, and invasion of 
domicile has been declared unlawful. To these intellectual improve- 
ments may be added physical or material ones ; good roads have been 
made throughout the cafiton and stage coaches put upon them, so that 
instead of ten or twelve people leaving Zurich, or entering it, per day, 
there are now one hundred and ten. The poor tax is at the rate of but. 
5 cents per annum for each citizen inhabiting the canton ; the church 
rate 18 cents ; and the expense of the civil list 20 cents. Finally the 
revenue in 1832 exceeded the expenditure by $100,000, and this surplus 
has been devoted to the cause of material and intellectual improvement. 

From the hasty and imperfect glance which we have now T taken to- 
gether of republican Switzerland, what conclusion may we draw as to 
the capacity of the principle which connects these people, to produce 
their happiness, their moral, intellectual, and physical improvement? 

In the distance which separates us from them the minuter shades of 
character are lost. We do not discern the men of Geneva, of Vaud, of 
Berne, and of Zurich, but the men of Switzerland. Standing out from the 
picture, like the lofty summits of their own mountain chains, are the 
prominent characteristics of the people. Frugality, perseverance, hardy 
enterprise, high moral and religious feeling, lofty patriotism; these are 
the characteristics of the Swiss nation. 

How far these noble qualities are the result of their political institu- 
tions, or whether the institutions owe their origin to these very qualities 
of the people, it is needless to inquire, since what greater praise can be 
awarded than the truth, that the institutions of Switzerland are in har- 
mony with the free spirit of the people, and the spirit of the people with 
their noble republican institutions. 



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